While we have been to the Minnesota History Center many times, last week was the first time my family and I went to the Open House exhibit. This exhibit features the history of the people who lived in one house, from the time it was built to the present, in the Railroad Island district of St. Paul, Minnesota. What is striking about the exhibit is how in the course of the existence of this house so many people from so many ethnic backgrounds lived in this house, many of them immigrants. The first residents, who built the house in 1888, were a family of German immigrants. Afterwards the house was made into a duplex and leased to Italian immigrants when the neighborhood became like a Little Italy. Then the house was divided into a triplex. Again it became a home for new citizens as refugees from Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos came to the United States during and after the Vietnam War. For all of these people coming to a new country was not easy, but they all came, expecting the welcome that the United States has been known for from the beginning.

I think of my ancestors coming from Lebanon just 100 years ago. They were Middle Eastern Christians making the trip across the ocean, passing through Ellis Island, changing their names, settling in St. Louis, Missouri. My great-great grandfather worked first as a peddler. Maronite Catholics by descent, they became Roman Catholic once in America. His own descendants started a painting company. His grandson, my grandfather, served in the army, earned a college degree, worked as a photographer, collected classical music, and raised seven children with my grandmother. They came from a faraway land, where unrest was always present, to a new land of promise. They found welcome, for they are still here.

But they are not the first immigrants to the United States of my ancestry. It goes back and back. I have ancestors from Scotland, one having fought in the Revolutionary War, his son in the War of 1812. Then another in the same line fought in the Civil War. I have ancestors from the Netherlands; my grandfather is named after his uncle, descended from these ancestors, who was a priest of Cleveland in the late 1800s. My son has the same shaped eyes as this many-great-uncle priest. I have ancestors who came from Ireland and Croatia, to find a new fresh start. I have ancestors who came from Germany, and one descended from that line was a bronze-medal-winning Olympian for the United States. I think of these ancestors seeking a new, a better life, or merely seeking escape from a miserable one. They came to our country, tired, probably poor. And they were taken in, they became a part of this great experiment of liberty. And because of this great mix of people from all over the world, I exist, a walking melting pot of America. And what does being a melting pot do for us? It teaches us to welcome the stranger, a work of mercy, no matter what they may bring.

I am not going to pretend to be a politician and know the right thing for our country, but I am a conservative. I look at the history of our country and the traditions that have been apart of our short lifespan as a nation. As our bishops have reminded us, we have always welcomed the stranger into our nation; when we welcome the stranger the welcome Christ. Let us not forget our duty as human beings to other human beings to extend welcome and mercy and charity. Let us remember that we all came from elsewhere; our ancestors were immigrants and refugees once. And they once came here, to this country, and became new citizens. Let us not forget our duty as Christians, and that the stranger is the one who needs welcome the most. In my adult life, I have moved to new cities three times. All of those times, there have been those who welcomed me, who became my new and dearest friends. If we want to be truly human, we are called to be a part of a community, and that community is local, national, and worldwide. When a person comes to us in need, we cannot refuse. Where would we be if those who came before us in their need were turned away?

Few people know that Emma Lazarus was already part of the embryonic Zionist movement, before it was called Zionism—coming to America, she was already hoping to emigrate to a Jewish homeland. Yet all that is ever cited is the verse engraved on the base of the statue—which itself is a representation of the French Revolutionary abstract divinity of Liberty, an amalgam of purely pagan symbols and representative of a wholly pagan notion of liberty, which has now blended with the politico-sociological conceit of a “melting pot” which the theological spavined have now not only baptized but made into a sort of moral imperative in which everyone is simply to be let in, and let alone, and allowed to steal identities, contrive the establishment of drug or jihadist bases, without let, and with every blessing and help from the bishops and the flock.

Posted by MT on Friday, Feb, 10, 2017 3:14 PM (EDT):

To DE

The comparison of Muslim immigration to Irish is inaccurate on numerous counts.

Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens (CCC 2241)

“A nationwide survey conducted by The Polling Company for the Center for Security Policy reveals that 51 percent of Muslims agreed that “Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to sharia.” In addition, 51 percent of those polled believed that they should have the choice of American or sharia courts. Only 39 percent agreed that Muslims in the U.S. should be subject to American courts.”

However, perhaps you feel the statistics cited here are myth rather than reality?

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2017/know-nothing-catholics

Posted by DE on Friday, Feb, 10, 2017 7:48 AM (EDT):

Many of these comments are depressing. I suppose it’s human nature to be suspicious and fearful of people perceived to be different from ourselves. But Catholics should be especially sensitive to this bias and guard against it—in the 19th century Catholic immigrants to the US were widely portrayed as barbarians, criminals, drunkards, etc….

Please separate myth from reality. Aren’t we morally obligated to do that? Immigrants to the US are not ‘out to get us’. Good grief.

Look it up “Newcomers to the U.S. are less likely than the native population to commit violent crimes or be incarcerated” Wall Street Journal, 7/14/15.

Posted by Mark Martinson on Thursday, Feb, 9, 2017 2:01 PM (EDT):

As usual, NOTHING about all the crime caused by non-European immigrants.

serious problems they are having with immigrants not wanting to assimilate into society. Some are raping and murdering people,.
The raping and murdering of humans is greater today in more ways then ever in America.

We fail to admit the United States was founded as nation with government that forced the Native Americans to move from the Eastern US to the what was then seen as a vast waist land of todays Texas, the SW and Midwest parts of the United States.
We can recognize that Catholic Priests went out then to these people, Evangelized those forced to be made refuges, strangers, nomads in their own land, in todays United States. These same humans that accepted the Gospel of Jesus Christ, were then in fact of Genocide reality exterminated by the US government, the Six shooter, the Colt Forty fives motivation was the extermination of then Catholics in todays United States of America, often referenced to as, “Indians”. We can equally recognize that the Nation was founded by a Founding Fathers that Owned Humans as slaves. With an even Worse fact of today the United States has a larger Slave Trading Numbers today than ever in History. Children of the United States are traded as sex slaves in a more horrific number than ever in USA history.
Mexico by many accounts is now recognized by Many the most dangerous country on Earth today, Catholic exterminating Catholics.

Many a immigrate has been treated as the definition of slave wage workers, and today slave wages is a USA national norm. In slave worker times, the immigrates were often hired in place of owned slaves for dangerous work, keeping those owned out of harms way, while the Irish workers were often used in places of danger, that the owned human was not at risk of death or being mamend.

Posted by sursun on Wednesday, Feb, 8, 2017 5:58 PM (EDT):

The Open House exhibit at the Minnesota History Center is slanted left. There are all sorts of only partially true slanted info in there. Overall it is OK, but if you really know history it is slanted. That place gives me the creeps because it is so politically slanted.

Posted by Phyllis Cory on Wednesday, Feb, 8, 2017 4:08 PM (EDT):

Agree with above comments directing us to Msgr. Pope’s article. He is an authentic go-to guy.

Posted by MT on Wednesday, Feb, 8, 2017 2:11 PM (EDT):

You may wish to consider William Kirkpatrick’s articles in Crisis Magazine before writing further.

http://www.crisismagazine.com/author/william-kilpatrick

Also, as Sean mentions above, Monsignor Pope’s article in today’s NCR is excellent and is backed by facts rather than emotions which charge many articles on this subject or highly selective quotations from Catholic teaching.

This topic, in a way, mirrors a similar issue in how best to solve the problem of poverty in Third World countries. Undoubtedly, all of us wish to eliminate poverty. Dumping US agricultural surplus and Tom’s shoes is not the solution (See the movie Poverty Inc.). While it may make us feel like “good Christians,” little if any long term good comes from it and perhaps even greater harm. In the documentary referenced above, one interviewee says we must have not only a heart for the poor, but a mind, as well.

Hearts with the absence of head can have grave, unintended results.

I, too, am a home school mother. Two of my six are currently in college. I recently reflected back to my college days when classmates would spend many weeks after graduation traveling with their Eurail passes throughout Europe staying in hostels. Would I be comfortable with my daughter doing that in Europe today? Not likely.

As we have seen in the Target bathroom wars, giving more freedom to some individuals can infringe on the freedoms (and safety) of others. I guess that is the crux of the argument—where does each person’s balance point sit, what level of risk is acceptable.

Posted by Sean on Wednesday, Feb, 8, 2017 8:03 AM (EDT):

To the author,
Educate yourself and read Msgr Pope’s current article on this topic and, more importantly, the comments following the article.
You are living in a dream world which your four children will pay for, dearly. Its called Dhiminitude.
But your bishop will call it ecumenism.
Bet on it.

Posted by bob on Tuesday, Feb, 7, 2017 9:32 PM (EDT):

We are a nation of immigrants and always help people in need as that is part of our Catholic identity.While we are welcoming we also do not want to be naive as to what is happening in europe and the serious problems they are having with immigrants not wanting to assimilate into society. Some are raping and murdering people.Now there parts of the cities that Christians fear for their lives in migrant areas.Let us be vigilant in helping people but also in keeping society safe.

Posted by Larry Northon on Tuesday, Feb, 7, 2017 8:26 PM (EDT):

“Let us not forget…” Do you think we HAVE? If so, how, exactly?

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Susanna Spencer has a masters in theology from the Franciscan University of Steubenville. She is a writer and the theological editor for Blessed is She, and writes on her own blog Living With Lady Philosophy. She is a homeschooling mother of four and lives with her family in St. Paul, Minnesota.